How crime and punishment do, and don't, work in the AFL world
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'Those are my principles, and if you don't like them, well...I have others' - Groucho Marx.
North Melbourne's Paul Curtis received a three-match suspension for a chase-down tackle, in which there was no intent to cause injury and his considerable momentum carried his opponent, Port Adelaide's Josh Sinn, into the turf, causing a concussion.
Willie Rioli was first spared from sanction for allegedly threatening an opponent, Bulldog Bailey Dale, in a message after the game. When it emerged that Rioli had allegedly also made threatening comments to Geelong and Essendon opponents – incidents that neither club felt serious enough to raise hackles about – the AFL flipped, not the bird, but their position, handing Rioli a one-match ban.
By the time Rioli was suspended, the ban was irrelevant because he'd already chosen to withdraw from the Showdown against the Crows, having been understandably exhausted and drained by the mini-saga. The AFL's initial clemency only made his situation worse.
Noah Balta received a lenient four-match ban for a serious assault that resulted in a conviction in court. The magistrate took matters out of AFL hands and, with a touch of Solomon's wisdom, sentenced Balta to a curfew that will remove him from several more games.
If Richmond were unhappy with the double jeopardy (triple, if you count the $45,000 settlement to the victim), they would know that many working stiffs – and even club staff – would be sacked by their employer for such an offence, the perception of which shifted dramatically once the footage was aired.
GWS player Josh Fahey copped the same ban as Balta for his part in an utterly tasteless skit in which he was nude and played the part of ex-NRL star Jarryn Hayne with a blow-up doll (Hayne's conviction for rape having been overturned on appeal).
Fahey's skit warranted suspension, but on a moral scale, it wasn't within cooee of Balta's real-life assault. How did the AFL judge them in the same post code? The magistrate's judgment embarrassed the AFL.
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